XPS model if you can budget for it, otherwise Latitude's are fine (our developers use E5520 Model, i7, 8GB RAM). Though don't go down to the Vostro's - had build quality issues and are more aimed at consumers than business.

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XPS model if you can budget for it, otherwise Latitude's are fine (our developers use E5520 Model, i7, 8GB RAM). Though don't go down to the Vostro's - had build quality issues and are more aimed at consumers than business.

of course they would, for example a colleague of mine has been trying to break his hp g62 i3 windows 7 pc for the past 6 months (aparantly it wasnt fast enough to run word properly?), he succeeded after leaving it in a heatproof bag with Skyrim running for 24 hours -_- so he get it replaced with an acer travlepad 2000, 700mhz processor single core, 256mb ram, and windows xp. after than a few other guys with the same laptops, who where having 'problems' all of the sudden miraculously fixed themselves =)

of course they would, for example a colleague of mine has been trying to break his hp g62 i3 windows 7 pc for the past 6 months (aparantly it wasnt fast enough to run word properly?), he succeeded after leaving it in a heatproof bag with Skyrim running for 24 hours -_- so he get it replaced with an acer travlepad 2000, 700mhz processor single core, 256mb ram, and windows xp. after than a few other guys with the same laptops, who where having 'problems' all of the sudden miraculously fixed themselves =)

lolololol, thats how to do it,

A few years back when I was doing desktop support I had this client who would raise support tickets several times a day for different stupid reasons.

Example: I cannot use bold fonts in notepad.

After months of dealing with this guy I came in and he immediately digs into me: ah you finally going to fix my problems?

As everyone is saying programmers generally dont need a lot horse power. I do a lot of programming and an i3 and 3gig of ram handles everything I can throw at it. The best thing to do is to pull up sysmon on one of the programmers current machines when there on it and see how much ram and cpu usage is going on.

Build quality will be more important than specs in many ways, as they will see a lot of action. If dell is what you want then the latitude or the xps will good bet. But youll probably only need the lower end models.

Depending on what they are Programming. Programming does not require much horsepower. It is the testing of the program that often requires a more powerful computer.

So the question is: Are they testing the programs also? Some of our developers write front end software the hit a huge database backend that requires a lot of RAM and CPU when testing, but doesn't require anything to write it.

Just to add my 2p as a dev. I am doing desktop / clientserver / server / web dev and have a number of VM's on my laptop. I have 2 offices (home and clients) and plug in an additional monitor. I use a Latitude E6510 and have recently upgraded to an SSD and 8GB of RAM. Already had i7 + Q820 @1.73Ghz. W7 64 bit.

Laptop: 15.4" = 2+KG making it a good compromise between screen size and portable. prior to upgrade of RAM and HDD I was considering replacing, but couldn't decide whether a 14" version would be suitable.

The horsepower is needed for:

- Running multiple VM's concurrently

- Running things like testComplete or Batch processing

Obviously if you are cloud developing, then you don't need a lot of horsepower. Then the limiting factor for me becomes screen size as you want to watch what is being delivered to the user alongside debugging / metrics etc.

I can only describe the addition of the SSD + RAM as amazing. It turned start / stop times for VM's and machine from minutes to seconds.

Latitudes for me have been an extremely reliable workhorse. My laptop is used on trains / laps / desks, gets closed and opened on average 5 times a day. I just wish it was as powerful but lighter.

Just to add - I moved up to a E6430 about a year ago and just miss the extra resolution on the screen. i.e. 1600 x 900 vs 1920 x whatever it was on the 6510.

My ideal would be hi res 15+ inch screen, but a little lighter than the current batch.

And to all laptop vendors out there - ADD THE ABILITY TO HAVE A SECOND DISK DRIVE. Oh to have an Esata drive that I could swap out and in by ejecting the DVD. I spent ages trying to sort this out. Found a vendor who made them, but he said I had to go to Dell. Dell said they didn't sell / support them :-(.

I looked into the precision range and the models that would take 2 disks were eitehr just a tad too much money or weight (can't remember which), I carry my laptop everywhere and it goes everywhere with me. I think the latitude is a great machine, whereas the precision seemed a little more like a luggable desktop. Anyway, that's my product suggestion. I'll be up for a new laptop in about 12 months, so if you could sort it by then that would be great :-).